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It’s instructive to go back to albums you considered pivotal years ago and see if you listen to them anymore. One album that still gets ample time in my house is Cretin’s Freakery, released in 2006. It’s the ultimate companion piece for Repulsion’s Horrified, the grindcore staple, and about as good of a statement you can make on your first proper album. Songs like “Walking a Midget” are contagious, abrasive, and infused with wicked wit and absurdity.
Plenty has happened since Freakery was released. Guitarist/vocalist Marissa Martinez came out as transgendered in an excellent Decibel article published in 2008. If you haven’t read the article, you should track down a copy; it’s top-shelf music journalism.
At that point Martinez’ story was just beginning. Since the article appeared, she had full gender reassignment surgery, went on a whirlwind tear through San Francisco’s nightlife, and fell in love. Throughout it all, she never lost her passion for grindcore, a music she loved since she was a teenager. Cretin bassist Matt Widener and drummer Col Jones (also Repulsion’s touring drummer) told Martinez they’d be happy to wait as she navigated her new life.,
In a world where you hear about the worst, Martinez offers the best: candor, a contagious sense of humor, and a desire to live an authentic life despite prejudice and fear. Martinez isn’t just a bad-ass grinder; she might just be one of the bravest people playing extreme music. Relapse will release Cretin’s new album this year.
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When you first went public with your story in 2008, were you scared about how it would be received, or did you have faith that the metal community would be accepting?
Honestly, I had no idea if I would be accepted. I imagined a lot of people laughing and joking about it. But I kind of just threw caution to the wind. And this was before I even did the gender transition. I felt a little bit stuck because I just I didn’t want to quit the band. I love my band. But it was something I had to do, so I didn’t think about the reaction.
I was married at the time. I had a house with my ex-wife, two dogs, and a career. I had a bunch of friends and family. I was 31. But things were just coming to a head, and I was getting to end of the rope. You just can’t imagine how hard it was to keep up the charade. Previously, I had just buried it. But something would come up that would push the transgender issues to the top. and I’d just push against it. I did it as long as I could.
Finally, my marriage was just failing. My ex and I hardly communicated. We had reached that point in our marriage where we were like, “OK, what’s the next step? Are we going to have kids?” But we weren’t planning for retirement or doing anything a normal couple usually does. Everything was at a stalemate. Basically, I just had to face the music. These issues just kept coming up, so we started marriage counseling. During counseling it became clear that the issue was my gender. Going though therapy helped me realize it.
How did the magazine article come about?
I’m friends with (Decibel editor) Albert Mudrian. I came out to him and pitched the idea that maybe we could do a story. I knew I needed to come out eventually. I figured it was better to come out to my friend’s magazine than another place. I knew I needed to come out to the metal scene because I didn’t want to quit the band. It seemed like the best outlet.
You are obviously accustomed to telling your story now, but I imagine the first time was difficult.
I don’t know. The first time might have been easier. I was in the thick of it. When I’m asked about my decision and how it worked, I have to think back at this point. So much happened that it’s kind of a blur three years later. At that time, it was easier to put my view across.
Do you still see or hear from your ex-wife?
Everything is good with us. Actually, I just saw her Monday because she does my hair. We don’t hang out on a regular basis. She’s remarried and lives in the East Bay. I live in San Francisco. Throughout the transition she supported me. She kind of gave me my first lessons on being a girl and nurtured me.
Everything that I do that I’m passionate about, I try to do genuinely. So when it came to transitioning, we knew it was a serious thing. I wasn’t trying to be ostentatious or a weekend drag queen. I was going to do this; I needed to do this. Because she was in the thick of it, she took it as seriously as I did. She helped me be genuine, even if it was something as superficial as doing my nails or tweezing my eyebrows. She set up my first appointment with a makeup artist at the MAC counter at the mall where she worked. She accompanied me because I was going to this public place by myself still very much looking like a guy. She sat there for moral support. I was very, very nervous early on. There were a lot of things like that. I had to relearn how to walk, how to talk, how to emote, and how to move. She even coached me on that, like, “Sit up straight! What are you doing?” She was very helpful.
There are a lot of details you don’t even consider when you’ve been in the same body for three decades.
I’ve always been very mindful of how women look and speak and act. I’d catalogue in the back of my head – “I wish I was like that. I wish I had hips like that”. From my own perspective, I continually recognize things and things I can improve on. Or I catch myself moving odd. My boyfriend thinks I’m crazy, but I have a huge attention to detail.
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Since you’ve shared your story, have you heard from other people in the scene who are going through similar struggles?
I have, and not just from fans, but from people in general. I get messages on the computer, and people ask for tips and pointers. But it’s hard because I’m not a therapist, and I don’t want to just be giving out advice. My advice is always that you need to seek out a gender therapist and see if they can help you.
What was the toughest story to hear?
There are a lot of variations. So many people are stuck. People have families that are extremely homophobic and might worry that their families are going to chastise them or exile them. It’s very difficult to hear. Others have messaged me, saying things like, “I am extremely masculine. I’m 6′6″ and 210 pounds. I can’t transition”. They aren’t sure where to go or what to do, and unfortunately there’s not much I can do. Therapy helps you figure it out.
Do you try to direct them to other resources?
I try to find out if they have a health care provider, and if they can use their health care provider to find a local therapist. Or I direct them to look online. I can’t recommend one service. I just know what I needed. I still have my own day-to-day stuff to take care of.
I noticed that you not only have been featured in metal magazines, but also were a guest on a transgender podcast.
I hang out in a transgender club a lot. I’ve become a regular. I was talking to one of the drag mothers, and she said, “In 20-plus years, you are the quickest transition I’ve seen”. Yup, I was on the podcast. What happened was that they actually heard from some transgender Cretin fans (laughs). So they contacted me to do the show.
If I were 18 today, I wouldn’t have put off the transition. I didn’t even know what transgender was. I would just think of she-males and other oddities. It was eye-opening to find out transgenderism was an actual condition and not just some freaky fetish fantasy.
Has your decision to make the change and be open about it has made you more of a public figure than you ever would have been as an underground metal musician?
Yes. And it’s been a great honor. Usually people are just hearing about things like Marilyn Manson that are just caricatures of a transgendered person. But I’m down to earth, and I play down-to-earth music. I think it’s a great privilege, and something I’m going to take advantage of.
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Martinez on her favorite Repulsion songs
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Do you remember the first time you heard Repulsion?
I was hanging out with Matt Harvey in his bedroom. For years I’d wanted to hear Repulsion, and Widener was like, “You won’t like them. It’s too thrashy”. I was talking to Harv, and he threw it on, and I instantly fell in love with it. It was at his parents’ house in the mid-’90s in San Jose.
I instantly identified with the music. I found what I was looking for all along. Of course, I loved Carcass and Napalm Death and countless death metal bands. But they never really reached me the way I was expecting. The moment I heard the opening blastbeat on “The Stench of Burning Death”, I was like, “This is perfection. This is what I’ve been looking for my entire musical life”. It just grabbed me. It was something I identified with and was an expression of the music inside me, the music I wanted to make. I was kicking myself for not listening to it years earlier when I had the tape in my hand.
What do you think differentiates a good grind song from a mediocre one? Are there any bands that you are listening to a lot now?
The thing that differentiates any good music from any other is there has to be something that catches you. There has to be something stuck in your head for when you’re going to the bus or going to get groceries. It has to stay in your head. That’s good music. That’s why I like Repulsion. The song structure is very simple, and there is some melody you can hum. When grind gets to a point where you can’t make anything out and there’s nothing redeeming, [and] it’s just playing as fast as you can, it gets monotonous. I look for the hooks and catchy rhythms.
I haven’t really caught on to newer bands. I did get the final mixes for the new Exhumed album, and I’ve been listening to it a lot. I haven’t shopped for much music lately. I’ve been settling for my old favorites. I’m not constantly involved with the music anymore. I don’t have the hunger to find new bands. My interests lie in other places. I definitely have elitist tastes when it comes to grind and death metal. But as much as I love the music and will always go to shows and be part of the scene, I have other interests now, too. I just do different things. I’m more interested in girly things (laughs). Not that girls can’t grind…I’m just distracted, I guess.
What did it feel like to get on stage with Repulsion at last year’s Maryland Deathfest and receive an unbelievably warm response from the crowd?
It was mind-blowing. In 2007, I played with Repulsion in San Francisco. We played the same two songs that we played at the Maryland Deathfest. Repulsion is my musical idol. So to get up on stage [in Baltimore] and see this sea of people raising their arms and shouting positive things – I just didn’t expect it at all.
You are playing MDF this summer. Do you anticipate the new record will be out by then?
No, that’s not going to happen (laughs). After I transitioned, we should have had something ready to come out, but it just didn’t happen that way. We’d like to do an EP and have it ready for Deathfest, but time keeps ticking, and I’m not sure we’ll be able to do that.
When people met you at Deathfest, what was the response?
There were people who knew who I was, and they kept saying how supportive they were. And then there were younger people who didn’t know who I was. I was approached by a lot of young girls who were saying they were so excited to see a girl on stage grinding like that (laughs). So that was a whole different dimension of cool. There were girls asking to take their picture with me. There were also just people who wanted to talk to me about death metal.
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Martinez at MDF, photo by Justina Villanueva
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You elected to have full gender reassignment and blogged about your difficult physical comeback. What got you through those moments?
The initial answer is Percocet. Leading up to the surgery, I was confident, and that made it easier. This was something I really wanted to do. But [after the surgery] I was whiny and bitchy (laughs). All I can say is that your entire body and the nerves are connected to the crotch. I had a lot of healing to do down there, and the swelling was just so bad. Then when I healed, I had to dilate, like, six times a day. It’s basically inserting these different-sized plastic dildoes up there to stretch it out. So I had to keep inserting them, and it’s basically an open wound you are poking and prodding at. It wasn’t comfortable.
Was there any music that helped you during that period?
No, I didn’t really listen to music. I played a lot on the computer. I was messing around a lot on MySpace and Facebook.
As you were transitioning, did you put down your guitar for a while?
Early in my transition, I started writing for the next Cretin album. After a month or two, there was too much aggression, and I was too distracted with redefining myself. I went to rehearsal with the band, and they could tell I wasn’t there. I just said we need to put things on hold. Col and Matt completely understood, and said they were there whenever I wanted to come back to Cretin. I had a lot of self-exploration to do.
Now I’m a year past my gender reassignment. I’m settled. I’m rediscovering my interest in the music and playing. Going to MDF solidified everything. I loved being in the environment again. I contacted the folks at MDF then and asked if they wanted Cretin to play this year.
When you go back and listen to Freakery, do you feel like you were projecting who you really wanted to be and what was then your secret life?
I definitely was on “Daddy’s Little Girl” and “Object of Utility”. “Daddy’s Little Girl” might be one of the few cases where what’s in a song later happened in real life. Yeah, it’s very black metal (laughs). I mean, I knew these were fantasies that I had, but I didn’t know back then I was going to make the transition.
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“Daddy’s Little Girl”
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After all you’ve been through personally in the past few years, how is it to sit down with Cretin and write music?
Cretin has always just been an excuse for us to get together once a week to see each other. When you get older, people have different lives and families, so friends can kind of separate. Cretin has always been about friendship. It was always just a chance to get together and make some music and grind. It’s fun.
What will the new Cretin sound like? I don’t imagine there will a huge shift in sound.
There shouldn’t be. We do want to boost the production values. We intentionally went for a DIY, rough sound for Freakery. There were just too many Nasum clones. They were overproduced with drum triggers, and it made the music stale. We wanted to return to the sound we fell in love with. The early bands couldn’t afford professional studios, or the studios didn’t know how to produce them. We wanted a return to that. We wanted it to sound dirty, like it was held together by sweat and duct tape. We won’t have drum triggers or overdo things this time, but we do want to have a better mix.
Freakery is an exact representation of how I write. Whenever I deviate from that, I end up writing things I don’t like. It will sound pretty similar. Widener wants to participate in the songwriting more, too, which will color things.
Will there be any material that deals directly with what you’ve been through in the past few years?
No. Cretin is more about fun, nothing serious. We want to keep it that way. We want to keep it fun and lighthearted. There will be a trans-related song most likely, but we’re not going to speaking out.
Will you be writing from a different perspective, or will you look at your music the same way?
On Freakery, I wrote about 80 percent of the music, and Widener wrote about 80 percent of the lyrics. I always tend to focus on the music. He’s the one who thinks up most of the lyrics. I try to do different things with the guitar. I imagine we’re going to do the same thing. We actually haven’t been able to rehearse in a while. We should be getting together soon, and Widener just finished up something else with one of his other projects. I thought about a few things and ideas.
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Martinez on how her singing voice won’t change
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It seems like Relapse has been a great partner and supporter.
They have been. Betsey and Gordon [from the label] drove me to my hotel room after surgery and took care of me. I love them. They made such an impression helping me out that that my Mom asked about them when we visited at Christmas.
What does it feel like to look back at old YouTube videos before you transitioned?
In a lot of ways it feels like I’m looking at my brother or a sibling. It is my past, but it’s also very much not me. There is a disconnect with some of that stuff. I don’t how my life would have been different if I had transitioned at an earlier age. It’s strange to see.
How did you develop your interest in fetish models?
That was just innate. Pretty much when I became sexually aware, I stumbled across a magazine and was completely taken by it. It was these two [female] legs, and I kept looking at them. When I transitioned, I started thinking, “I can actually wear this stuff now”.
What was a weekend in San Francisco like for the liberated Marissa Martinez?
Initially I would go out on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights and drink like crazy. The weekends usually consisted of me dressing up really slutty and going to a bar and not paying for alcohol. There have been orgies, threesomes, chicks making out…rock and roll! (laughs) All of it was being who I should have been. I exploded into the nightlife. But I fell in love and have a boyfriend now. He’s kind of nervous that I might start doing this stuff again.
How did you meet your boyfriend? Is he into metal?
He’s in the scene. We met through a web forum on metal. He participated but didn’t have a huge presence. But one day he posted that he was in San Francisco for a few days. So I told him we should hang out. It was completely innocent because I was a militant lesbian at the time. We messaged each other and exchanged phone numbers.
We had dinner plans. I got off work and texted him and asked him about dinner, and he had gotten drunk the night before and forgotten about the plans. He played it off and found a good place for dinner. We just really hit it off all night. That was the end of it.
It seems like your story is one with a happy ending.
Well, there have been lots of happy endings (laughs).
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HEAR FREAKERY
“Object of Futility”
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Full album stream links:
Double-click video, open description box
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BUY FREAKERY
Amazon (MP3)
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Relapse (CD, LP, shirt)
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Awesome story. Still a lot of ugly homophobia in metal (along with the ugly misogyny). If metal really is about asserting one’s individuality over and against dominant values like so many people say it is, then I can’t imagine there are many metal musicians who embody that ethos better than Marissa Martinez.
It was so, SO awesome to see Marissa go up with Repulsion at MDF last year and just nail those last two songs. Having seen and gotten into Cretin via Albert’s praise at Auditory Assault Fest 2006 (pre-surgery), I can confirm that her death vocals are indeed awesome and unchanged. I really, deeply hope that the widespread acceptance of her journey means one step towards the acceptance of LGBTQ people in metal, it really depresses me how much misogyny and homophobia are still pretty rampant.
in grindcore, you can have your cake and eat it too.
For better or worse, this is fucking unnatural.
@dunkel — What could be more natural than being your authentic self? Before you criticize think about what it would be like to walk in her shoes.
good for him. Or I mean her. I am happy to see that her transition has for the most part been embraced by the underground extreme music community, which often times, is not the most open minded.
Marissa is my best friend since we were little kids. She is a living example of self-definition, freedom, creation, and the most philosophically authentic person I know. I love her. I loved her like a brother and now love her like a sister. It’s impossible to convey how proud I am of her. It hasn’t always been simple or easy, but I feel like a lucky guy to have witnessed all this.
I think the homophobia and misogyny that is still prevalent in metal is because just like any other societal group out there, there is always some form of brain dead herd mentality that will always go on amongst its ranks.
Seeing Marissa slay with Repulsion was one of the best moments–and biggest suprises at last year’s MDF. My favorite part of that is when she belted out the memorable ad lib “FUCK!” from the song Horrified. Looking forward to seeing Cretin at MDF!!!
BTW, that “FUCK!” moment was this one, I think.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carmeloespanola/4664858940/in/photostream/
total support
I’m excited to hear the sound diversify (at least a little) beyond total Repulsion worship. That’s a cool sound, but Freakery had its own moments of individuality that hinted at future goodness.
Trans woman and metalhead from Pittsburgh, PA. Been following along with Marissa’s story ever since I found out about her a few years back. I admire her courage to face a community that can be downright brutal to anybody within the GLBT community. There have been times for me going to a metal show that I had nerves just being myself. She’s on stage in the spotlight. Good for her. She is one example that gives me confidence towards the rest o for my transition. Stay brutal Marissa \m/ \m/
Also, I like the idea of someone finding her own voice yet still retaining the physical capability of her previous one (in this case, the death growl). It’s like some futuristic, genetically engineered superiority.
New Cretin? Aweosme! I wasn’t sure we were ever going to get any more. Put that on my list of anticipated metal albums this year. Marissa, I know you’re excited about the recent adjustments to your life, but I’d say there’s plenty of time to paint your fingernails AFTER you get your butt back in the studio.
I do hope the Repulsion worship is in place, but it would be nice to get some innovation along with it. But, really, Freakery was so good, and it’s been so long that I don’t think I’d be too disappointed with more of the same.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound critical, but its true that human sex change doesn’t just happen on its own in nature. (That’s all I meant by that comment). I don’t have much of an opinion one way or the other, to each their own. I think the attitudes are divided between ‘play the hand your dealt’ and ‘the most important thing in life is really to be yourself’, which, clearly, often contradicts each other. It’s not a misogynistic or sex/gender issue to me, its just a sense of disharmony, like shaving off the corners of a square peg to fit it in the circle hole. And, quite frankly, I’m not much a fan of advancing technology and the ‘1984′ world we’re heading towards in the first place, so I apologize to admit that I find this intriguing and yet a little scary (or unnatural), in a freaky H R Giger sort of way. But, at the end of the day, it just makes you think, which I’m glad this interview has made me do, as it will countless others. However way you look at it, it’s definitely extreme, and I’m a fan of the extreme.
Melissa rules. She is the epitome of victory over horseshit.
Great interview! I think it is fucking fantastic that Marissa is able to be herself and I think it’s equally fantastic that she is getting the encouragement she deserves. Seeing the metal community being so supportive and open minded gives me a hell of a lot of hope for the future.
You know what’s unnatural? Electric guitars. First, you have to make them out of wood and wire and plastic and whatnot, and then you have to plug them into a wall.
Seriously though, it’s great to see that metal has progressed beyond Sebastian Bach wearing an “AIDS kills fags dead” T-Shirt and representatives from Metallica and GN’R protesting that them playing an Eddie Mercury tribute didn’t mean that they were cool with gay people (maybe I’m misremembering that, but as a highs choller with gay friends, it sure bugged me). Fuck that shit.
@dunkelheit – Nothing about human society ever exists “in nature,” so to speak, and what you suggest is ‘unnatural’ starts looking very much less so if you shift away from a strictly biological view of sex toward a socially-constructed view of gender. That is, what you’re suggesting is ‘unnatural’ perhaps looks so if one assumes that biological, chromosomally-determined sex informs some metaphysical ‘truth’ about an individual. I think we have seen enough evidence of the mutability of gender identity to contradict such a biologically deterministic account of human expression.
Like so many others commenting here, this is a great story, and the fact that the extreme metal community has been by and large supportive of Marissa is a very promising start. Cheers for a really excellent and thoughtful interview!
Cretin is an awesome fucking band, and Marissa is not only incredibly inspiring but also quite gorgeous. An excellent interview.
@Spinal Tapdance:
Thank you! As a queer metalhead, I hate seeing a lot of people within the scene try to justify their misogyny/homophobia/or, in this case, structuralist thinking. In other words, they assume that everything has its place, and that people naturally fall into categories, when really it’s society that’s responsible for that. So to dunkel: you’re still being pretty damn ignorant.
If your homophobic and/or racist in this day and age, it’s gonna be an uphill climb for you my friend.
pseudonymous said :
… If metal really is about asserting one’s individuality over and against dominant values like so many people say it is ….
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There’s nothing much individual or rebellious or even courageous about being progay or proqueer these days, especially in large urban centers like NYC, SanFran, etc. In SanFran who’s the nonconformist ? The militant lesbian like what she called herself of the person who may feel uninterested or downright hostile to all the queer theory stuff ?
if you’re under 35yo and you live in a big city, being progay is being just like everybody else. You’re in no way going against the grain of dominant values. Not at all.
Orthodox Caveman said :
… Thank you! As a queer metalhead, I hate seeing a lot of people within the scene try to justify …. structuralist thinking…they assume that everything has its place, and that people naturally fall into categories, when really it’s society that’s responsible for that. …. So to dunkel: you’re still being pretty damn ignorant.
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Oh i see so it’s morally reprehensible to even explain why one would adhere to what you call structuralist thinking. It’s “ignorant” or something. Well, i think you’re the one who’s ignorant, meaning lacking in knowledge ( please note that ignorant is not synonymous with “holding views that don’t fit my leftist outlook”). Just what is “society” made up of ? isn’t society an aggregation of people ? Aren’t people animals of some sort whose behaviour is ultimately the result of their biology ?
If you were a sophisticated thinker ( you probably aren’t since they don’t ask you to think carefully in your queer studies major, they just ask you to feel outrage for this, outrage for that ) you might argue that society is a complex system whose properties aren’t a sum of the properties of its parts but..i don’t see the “it’s all society’s fault” proponents say that.
I guess all this leftist , queer theoretic , gender theoretic blank slate idiocy comes with the territory of hipster post metal. The music is great but the politics are fckin annoying. It used to be that people into the queer theory stuff went into punk and maybe hardcore. They left metal alone. That time is over.. oh well.
Wow, great answers!!! Definitely in the vein of “that’s probably more info than I wanted to know, but Good on Ya!”
Life is all about the happy endings
BTW, I’m Pro-Organism. Absolutely can’t stand minerals tho.
Down with Rocks!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QfpOTfB6PA
Sulfugor—-
Waaaaah, my metal scene is diversifying in scope and isn’t completely overran with homophobic, transphobic assholes whose only concerns are tits, beer and riffs. Go cry about it. Your rhetoric sounds like right wing republican/Bill O’Reilly bullshit.
Umm… For the record… Tits, beer, and riffs are definitely at the top of my list of concerns…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QfpOTfB6PA
ZERO TOLERANCE
Awesome interview Marissa, look forward to your performance at MDF. You have helped to to come to terms with who I am (I am not TG). In the ugly world of homophobia, you are a brave and beautiful soul. congrats on your relationship and MDF and the new album. Can’t wait
shaun,
Do you think there is room in the metal scene for those who are at best indifferent towards inclusion/tolerance and being gay/TS/queer positive ? Or do you think everyone has to be militantly progay, no mild hostility or even indifference allowed ?
As for being a fox/O’reilly kind of guy, i don’t think so. I’m an atheist and a darwinist. Just not left wing one and i think tolerance is extremely overrated as a moral quality.
haha when I saw Repulsion at MDF I was like, damn that chick has big tits, she’s hot… damn…. agh…
Just getting to this story. What an amazing experience and very brave of Marissa to share with us!
@pseudonymous – Axl Rose’s homophobia combined with his worship of Freddie Mercury and Elton John is such a hilariously preposterous contradiction.
there have been lots of trans people in bands over the years, not as many in the metal scene, but there have been a few.
of course marissa is one of the more talented ones. and she is a pretty lady.
not all of the brilliant talented transgendered people make it through life intact. and transitioning doesn’t always work out in the way we hope it will… I know that first hand.